July 18, 2006

G92: Red Sox 1, Royals 0

An absolute gem from Jon Lester, who was able to keep his pitch count down (15-16-8 20-9-13 11-8). Kansas City's only hit came on a ground ball up the middle by Teahen with one out in the second inning. Alex Gonzalez tried to glove it -- and I thought he might -- but it was just out his reach, bouncing into center field. Nothing else was even close to being a hit.

With one out in the home fifth, Jason Varitek doubled high off the left field wall. One out later, Gonzalez singled to center for the RBI.

In New York: According to several SoSHers, tonight's YES worship of new Yankee starter Sidney Ponson is already in high gear. Michael Kay said that Mariners starter Joel Piniero did a "nice job", but Ponson was "incredible". Let's take a look:

excellent stuff. one of those games where you get way more excited than if we crush a team 20-0 (although awesome, that would be;))shutting down a team, even if it's KC, is so...satisfying ;D

i didn't know it had been since 2001 (!) that red sox pitching had produced a one-hitter. dayum. pretty cool :)

and i love lester. and it's not just cause of what he has done so far. i felt it right away with him; he has poise, presence, and a 'fuck'd if i care' cool feeling about him on the mound. he never seems fazed.

it's why we don't dump on beckett for being the 'way-back' machine that the boston globe would like to paint him out as. we like him cause he is 'beckett'. he is...well. the man ;)

Okay, so JJ is a PUTZ and the Yanks go on to pull out an extra inning win... But aside from Seattle not being able to give the Sox a little breathing room in the standings, isn't it kinda scary that the Red Sox bats, which so regularly have feasted on 5+ ERA pitching this season, usually inflating the poor pitcher's numbers and often an early departure, suddenly the Sox are shaving whole numbers off the ERA's of a handful of so-so pitchers and looking fairly feeble in the process.

Ponson also received a standing O for his performance. That's right, Varitek gets one for catching more games than any other Sox player IN HISTORY, while Yankee fans give 'em out for four runs in six and two-thirds.

Now the Sox are saying that they'll give a start to some new Pawtucket loser with a AAA Era close to 5? That's a great way to win a championship...so if Wake goes down we'll have TWO anonymous bozos in a 5 man rotation. But hey...as long as the Sox have a "lights out" closer, it doesn't matter. Madness!

Meanwhile, the Yankees steal a win because the umpire at first wasn't bearing down and made a brutal call that cost Seattle the game.

What are you TALKING about, "every game"? The worst closers in the world make 60%-70% of their saves. The average ones do 80%. That's ridiculous!

I defy anyone to do the math that would show that replacing Papelbon with a competent closer like Gordon would cost half as many games as starting a Kyle Snyder instead of a Paelbon every 5 days. It's not even a close call.

it's like how yankee hitters will get a curtain call for like every home run or big hit they get, as if it's this impossible thing that doesn't happen everyday in baseball. or how they play the theme for 'the natural' at ameriquest field whenever a texas ranger goes deep [i think they still do that. if they don't, they used to].

it's weak. embarrassing really. those things should be saved for extraordinary, special circumstances, but they overdo it everytime.

Converting a closer to a starter is not an instantaneous process. This year, with all the talk of switching roles, I've been led to believe it's a matter of different training, different type of endurance, what have you.

And there is some agreement that being a closer is a mental state as much as anything else. Just because he's that good at being a closer doesn't mean he'd be a 13-2 1.89 ERA starter. Maybe he wouldn't do as well in that role.

When someone's doing a job as well as he is, you leave him in there. Next season, maybe a change, but -- the way he's pitching now, he's not just an effective closer. Not just a good closer. He's maintained a .5 ERA over more than half the season.

He'd almost certainly be at least a decent starter, might be a great one, but if we were to take a chance on converting him, it would take time, we'd lose our closer, and if it was all a big mistake and we wanted him to go back to closing, it'd be late September by the time he'd get back there effectively.

Understand you have your mind made up on this one, Jack, but I don't see it as madness.